The Kingdoms of Evil (53 page)

Her voice, when she found breath to speak, was harsh distressed whisper, but it carried to the walls of the Ceremonial Seraglio and the hooded figures that stood arrayed along them. "Do what you
will
with me, fiend." She cried, voice cracking. "But I shall
never
surrender my heart to you, though you abuse me for a thousand nights." In reality, of course, Bloodbyrn had practiced the ancient formulae so many times that she was by now completely inured to their meaning. No matter. This whole ceremony was really for her father, the sentimental old reprobate, and for the other witnesses. As if overcome with emotion, she closed her eyes and writhed.

Ashwing's painful and embarrassing seduction attempt had been ill-conceived to put it kindly. (And had anyone ever mentioned to her that such tight whale-boning made her look like a goblet full of pudding? Men only stared, Bloodbyrn was sure, for the sheer fluid-dynamic spectacle. It was too late to say so now, of course, but someone should have when she was alive.) Then to learn that Ashwing had allowed herself to be manipulated into death by Feerix, of all people, Bloodbyrn could only pity the vacuous, misguided strumpet.

"Oh, my dear," came the voice of King Feerborg, "your heart will be mine. But only after you have surrendered everything else to me."

"'After you have surrendered
all
else to me.'" Bloodbyrn corrected. Ashwing had panicked, that was all. She had crumbled under pressure. Bloodbyrn, on the other hand, was doing splendidly. "No, no! You tyrant! Do you think I would willingly give you anything? I despise you, I loathe the very air you breathe and the ground you trend upon! If you would have anything of mine, you must take it!"

"Before I am done, my pet, you will give me all I ask for, and more."

Even though she knew the Ultimate Fiend better than Lady Ashwing and therefore had far more cause for alarm, Bloodbyrn had not lost her poise. She had merely taken advantage of her careful preparations and stepped up her schedule.

The Ceremonial Seraglio was filled with the scent of boiling blood, brimstone, and the ghostly whispers of a thousand conquests. Red-glowing crystals and fires under the blood-caldrons cast flickering shadows onto the cone of gauzy curtain that stretched up from the circumference of the bed to the pulley assembly that moved the furniture onto and off of the room's central altar. The silhouettes of the Sangboise, Skrean, and sSt'tdraschni observers, the despots, barons, priests, and their retinues, all male, of course, loomed and lurched over them as she and her lord performed the ancient ritual of un-marriage.

"No, no!" Cried Bloodbyrn, "I am helpless as your powerful hands seize and spread my quivering legs!"

There was a pause.

Bloodbyrn opened one eye and hissed, voice pitched not to carry beyond the curtains, "Do not simply stand there like an obelisk, my lord, spread my legs with you powerful hands!"

A hand, pleasantly warm, though rather limp, closed over one knee. Bloodbyrn waited, but the appendage simply lay there like an exhausted squid. Bloodbyrn sighed. "Just read your lines, my lord."

"Ah ha, my dear." He complied. King Feerborg squinted at the cue card, held before his pince-nez by a gremlin. The little monster hung from a wire attached to the Ultimate Fiend's hat, and did nothing to improve the ambiance of the fiendish boudoir.

"I feel ridiculous." Lord Feerborg was not entirely devoid of the powers of observation, it would seem.

"Oh, oh your frigid fingers! Strong and cold as the high mountain crags!" Bloodbyrn recited, then continued
sotto voce
. "You would feel less so if you had spent more time studying your lines, my lord."

"I am far more powerful than any mere mountain, my dear," said King Feerborg. "Yes, that would have been the two hours you kept me locked in a room?"

"Of course!" she whispered in response. "I needed time to enjoy my bachelorette party. It was very touching. Oh, for the Maelstrom's sake, my lord, at least loom over me threateningly, your outline through the curtain cannot appear very convincing to our observers outside."

Her lord drew himself up over her in what he probably imagined was a threatening pose. Bloodbyrn had done her best with his wardrobe, but one can only add so many skull helmets and alligator shoulder-pads. Nevertheless, she released what she thought was a suitably convincing squeal.

"Ah, your screams are sweet music to my ears," her lord read aloud obediently as the gremlin dropped the next cue card before his eyes.

Bloodbyrn threw her head back and cried, with some real emotion this time, "No, please, merciful gods, save me!"

"Mercy is for the weak, my dear, and I, as you can plainly see, am anything but."

The act continued for some time, but as titillating as the lines were, delivery is responsible for the majority of the impact of any spoken phrase, and in that area, as in so many others, her lord failed.

Bloodbyrn did her best to compensate for her Soon-to-be-master's failings of melodrama, but she was exhausted by the end of the program. "You tyrant!" she spoke the cue. "Oh…no, oh yes!"

There was a shuffling of cards and then her lord read, "At last you soften in my clutches. Like the ripe, uh, plums grown in the soft lands across the mountains, your tender flesh hangs ripe for me to pluck."

Bloodbyrn entertained a brief fantasy about a dark lord who would understand and act upon that symbolism. But alas her breasts remained un-seized. "Put your hands on me, Tempest take you!"

Her Lord Feerborg raised his head to bring her barely-concealed bosom into view, then flinched as if struck.

Bloodbyrn sighed. Perhaps she had overdone the aversion training.

After a moment though, and a glance at the manacles that firmly bound her hands, her lord bent down awkwardly and put on hand on her chest. It lay there, another unappealing aquatic creature. He cleared his throat. "But what is this? Clothing upon the flesh of my woman?"

"No! Curse my weakness! I will never give in to you, foul despot. What you want you must…
take
by force." For ages Bloodbyrn had assiduously practiced this line for before her mirror, and was quite proud of the timbre and verve of her delivery.

Unfortunately, her lord chose that moment to read his cue card, and all Bloodbyrn was able to say was "I will never" before Freetrick stepped on her lines.

"Onion! Uh.." Freetrick squinted at the card. "…oh. Sorry.
Minion!
My dagger! That I may ease two fiendish hungers at…once. Ew!"

With a practiced flick of the wrist, the Dark Prince Feerix parted the curtains that surrounded the bed. Behind him, she could see the assembled government of the Kingdoms of Evil.

"Oh, my lord, oh dark and terrible master!" cried the Despot's half-brother with panache. Bloodbyrn could almost wish
him
atop her rather than Feerborg, if it were not for the firm lessons of experience.

"Take you this dagger from mine hand!" Feerix continued. "Take it, that you may part the livid flesh of the innocent upon whom you stand ready to unleash your ravishment!"

Then in a lower tone of voice, "if you have any trouble, feel free to ask for advice, oh
powerful
and
manly
half-brother mine. Even a demonstration—"

"Shut up Feerix!" Her lord hissed, and Bloodbyrn found herself agreeing. Indeed, there were worse men to seduce than Feerborg. If only she could find a member of the male gender who could be at once powerful and commanding and not a blithering idiot.

Thinking of which…Bloodbyrn rolled her head over to her lord Feerborg. "Go on, my lord."

"Now, uh," King Feerborg stammered as he leaned forward and the little gremlin holding his cue card shifted, "careful my dear, don't struggle. We wouldn't want the blade to slip. Oh, I certainly am menacing."

Bloodbyrn, manacled to the enormous round four-poster bed rolled her eyes. "There is no need to be so sarcastic, my lord."

Freetrick glanced at the curtains. "They can't hear the sarcasm."

"I can," she whispered, "and I would appreciate it, my lord, if you took this ceremony seriously."

"Seriously?" The hand over her knee slid upward. Unconsciously? "I don't even know why I'm cooperating with you. Probably just because the ridiculousness is overpowering my anger. You striking kidnapped me!" His voice dropped to a growl. "
Again
."

"Keep your voice down, my lord. Oh how I tremble under your lustful fingers!" Reasonable persons never need to raise their voices when in argument, and Bloodbyrn did not do so even now. "Well, my lord, I must admit I am someone chagrined at that necessity myself. Had you told me about your plans to kidnap me, I would not have been forced to act."

It was traditional in Skrean un-weddings for the bride and groom to attempt to kidnap or kill each other. The aim of these practices was to assure all participants and audience members that the power balance in the relationship would be suitably wicked.

"I didn't have any plans to kidnap you! And um…soon you shall feel more than that!"

Sensing some impatience from the other side of the shear curtains, Bloodbyrn let out a moan of despair and ecstasy, then whispered, "So I gathered. Having no confidence whatever in my lord's abilities in the direction of romantic tactics, I was forced to make arrangements for a pre-emptive strike." Persons wishing to accomplish anything worthwhile in this life are those who take matters into their own hands, "If you would not kidnap me, then needs must I kidnap you."

But King Feerborg only looked at her with that deplorable expression of helpless imbecility, like a baby lizard that had been struck on the head. "I am sure that I mentioned this at some point."

"No, I'm striking sure you didn't."

"Is that indeed so? Well then, I suppose the tactical advantage was mine. Now be a dear and read your cue card."

"Uh," Her lord's eyes darted up to the gremlin on its string. "My most venomous flower, my dripping ichor of delight, my poisoned…little pie?
For the love of all Truth!
Tonight is the night you finally fall to me."

"The knife! My lord."

"Do I really have to…?"

Rather than resort to the crudity of verbal communication, Bloodbyrn allowed her emotions to express themselves in the medium of facial expression. The effect was gratifying.

"Fine!" said King Feerborg. Bloodbyrn sighed as she felt the cloth part over her chest and belly, then between her legs. Other dark lords might have taken more time about it, but at this extremity, Bloodbyrn was happy enough with simple compliance.

Now, with her naked body under him, she might finally determine whether a man's blood flowed through her lord's veins. Bloodbyrn arched her back, keeping her legs pressed together in a way she knew made a very nice tapered line down from the curves of her hips. She parted her lips and looked upward through half-lidded eyes, her voice a satin sheet gliding over edged obsidian. "Oh my lord, what will you do with me now?"

Her lord was not looking, however, but reading his cue card. "A black blade on your white skin, my dear. And if the blade were to slip, how a drop of red would complete the picture. How it would…whet my appetite. Yuck?"

Bloodbyrn allowed herself no outward expression disappointment. "Well?"

"Well what?" Feerborg still did not look at her. But were those little bolts of lightning flickering across his eyes? Was there perhaps the slightest of tremors in his voice?

"Well," Bloodbyrn murmured in honeyed tones, "why have you not…cut into me, my lord?"

The lightning bolts disappeared. "Oh for the love of—no!" He hissed.

"My lord Feerborg!" The emotion in Bloodbyrn's voice was powerful enough to overcome her lord's modesty. He looked away from his cue card. "This is a tradition that goes back nearly a thousand years. If you do not use that knife to draw blood from my skin right this very
instant
, it will go hard on you. Do I make myself clear?"

"Fine," said King Feerborg sulkily. Bloodbyrn felt a pitiful little jab on her upper thigh. "There."

"The First Blood," Bloodbyrn cried, "is drawn! Now," she whispered, "lick it off."

"But—" but this time her lord needed no further encouragement. Even as he protested, he was bending over, bringing his mouth to her flesh.

And then. Was that a tensing of his muscles? Was that a tightening of the fingers, a more fervent pressing against her thigh? Was the Despot's blood heating?

Bloodbyrn placed her hand under his chin and moved his head up, over her navel and then up the median line of her belly. As she drew his head forward, he was forced to lean over her and, fortunately shifting his weight onto his elbows and off her chest and thigh. Soon, if rather clumsily, King Feerborg had moved over her, eyes crackling in a way Bloodbyrn found not entirely comfortable.

Bloodbyrn opened her mouth to instruct her lord as to the next action expected of him, but suddenly he was leaning over her, his own mouth opening. His canines glistened in the red light.

Bloodbyrn closed her eyes and held her breath, but the expected attack on her jugular failed to occur. Instead, her breath rushed from her as she felt her lord's lips descend over hers.

The Ultimate Fiend was
kissing
her!

For a moment, Bloodbyrn tried to fight back against the disgusting, degenerate sign of Do-Gooder affection, but then his hand moved under her. Somehow the clasps of his gauntlets, vambraces, and couters had come undone, and the skin of his hands and forearms slid across her shoulder blades and neck as he reached around her, embracing her, cupping the base of her skull in a powerful, spread fingers. There were a series of clacks, the weight and pinch of more armor falling, and then her lord's naked upper body was pressed against hers.

And the kiss continued. Lord of Blood help her but it felt good. Good. Like the forbidden touch of softness under the hands, the gentle caress that no Dark Lady must ever receive, or receiving, enjoy. And yet she could not help but enjoy it, could not do anything, in fact, but melt into her lord's arms, and kiss him back.